8 Useful Adobe AIR Applications That Work In Linux

It is very common (and frustrating) to install an Adobe Air application on your Linux system and find that it is not working. After all, the Adobe Air for Linux is still in alpha stage. It is not feature complete and does not support most of the applications.

While we have previously covered some of the cool AIR applications, most of them are meant for the Windows/Mac platform. For Linux users who are constantly looking for AIR applications, here is a list of 8 useful AIR applications that we have tested and found them to be working in Linux.

1. TweetDeck

TweetDeck - Adobe Air App

TweetDeck is an interesting Twitter client that allows you to organize your tweets into more manageable levels. It enables the user to split their main feed into topics or group specific columns allowing a broader overview of tweets.

There are several useful features in TweetDeck. One of them is the auto-updating of the Twitter status so that you know when Twitter is down. The next feature is that you can continue to send tweets even when you are offline (or when Twitter is down). Tweets and direct messages are queued and then sent automatically when you are back online.

2. WebKut

WebKut - Screen Capture

WebKut allows you to take a screenshot of any Web page easily. It loads the page in its own viewer and you can screen-capture the page the way you like it. This is so far the easiest and simplest screen capture tool that I have come across.

3. Snackr

Snackr

Snackr is a RSS ticker that pulls random items from your feeds and scrolls them across your desktop in an unobstructive way. It is easy to hide/deactivate it when you find it annoying and when you see a title that looks interesting, you can simply click on it to pop up the item in a window.

4. Xdrive Desktop Lite

Xdrive - Online Storage App

Xdrive is an online storage service provided by AOL. It’s free and you get a whopping 5GB of online storage space to backup all your data, video and music. The AIR application Xdrive Desktop Lite is to allow its users to easily transfer and backup their local files to Xdrive online storage.

5. AirTube Video Downloader

Using the AirTube Video downloader, you can easily download YouTube videos to your desktop simply by dragging or pasting the video’s URL. After the downloading is completed, the application will playback the video in its viewer. A useful tool for someone who downloads videos very often.

6. Destroy Flickr

Destroy Flickr

There is already a full review on DestroyFlickr, so I shall not say anymore about it. But it is definitely a good thing that a great app like this works on Linux too.

7. Klok

Klok

Klok is a time management application that allows you to monitor the time you have spent on projects, tasks and any other stuff. You can view the timeline in Weekly view, Project view or get it to generate a report and display in pie-chart format. There are some very well-thought features such as setting up a template for new projects, creating sub-projects, drop-down calendar and a zoom in/out function for the timeline. If you are looking for a good time management application, Klok is definitely the one I would recommend.

8. UVLayer

uvLayer

If you have watched the movie ‘Minority Report’, then you will find the interface of UVLayer very similar to that in the movie. When you search for a video via the search bar, UVLayer will instantly fetch a list of videos from YouTube and Truveo and display them in a big window. You can then drag the video onto anywhere in the canvas. It is also integrated with Google Talk, Facebook and AIM so that you can share the videos with your friends easily.

Are there any more Air applications for Linux that you want to add?


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Damien Oh

Damien Oh is an all-out technology geek who loves to tweak and hack various operating systems to make life easier. Check out his blog at MakeTechEasier.com where he shares all the tips, tricks and tutorials.

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Hide 25 Comments

  • Inferno August 6, 2008
    0 likes

    Hey,
    I’m running Ubuntu 8.04, and I’m trying to install it I followed the steps on the website (made file executable etc) And it says you don’t have permission contact network administrator. I tried it as root, and I tried it with firefox closed (as I read these were problems) and I still can’t install Adobe Air! Any help?

    | Like
    • Justin October 27, 2008
      0 likes

      Inferno, the adobeair_linux_b1_091508.bin file does not have executable rights by default, need to run chmod +x on the file before it can be run, even by root

      | Like
  • refreshingapps August 6, 2008
    0 likes

    You can find more AIR apps over at RefreshingApps.com

    Good for highlighting the ones that work with Linux.

    | Like
  • Mark Flanagan August 6, 2008
    0 likes

    To Inferno: Try closing any package manager. Air does install itself and its apps as deb files even though it would seem not to be doing that. Very tricky.

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    • Inferno August 6, 2008
      0 likes

      I tried closing pretty much everything. All I have open is terminal, still no luck. Thanks for the help though! I’m trying to think what else it could be.. For now I’ll just install Air on Windows.

      | Like
  • Aubrey Kilian August 7, 2008
    0 likes

    I use twhirl (twhirl.org ) as my Twitter app on Ubuntu, works great.
    Will definitely check out some of the apps you mention above.

    | Like
  • Damien Oh August 7, 2008
    0 likes

    @Inferno: Adobe AIR should install itself as long as you make it executable. You might want to re-download the file and try again.

    | Like
  • fr00gYl August 7, 2008
    0 likes

    Yeh I know it may be a little off topic but AOL is going to shutdown it’s XDrive service.

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  • Greg August 7, 2008
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    What? No mention of Twhirl or Posty?

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  • Jim Jones August 7, 2008
    0 likes

    Dude that is too funny. Are you for real here?

    JT

    FireMe.To/udi

    | Like
  • Damien Oh August 7, 2008
    0 likes

    @Aubrey, Greg: Yes, twhirl work in Linux too. I didn’t include it because it is overlapping with TweetDeck. Between TweetDeck and Twhirl, I find TweetDeck offers a much better user-interface

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  • Xdrive fails August 7, 2008
    0 likes

    Xdrive service is going to be canceled, it fails miserably anyways.

    Your chances of actually using the service are slim, and even then having it work properly would be way out of the question.

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  • Ian D. Miller August 7, 2008
    0 likes

    WebKut is cool…but if you’re running compiz, you alrady have it. Windows (super) + left mouse click and drag, you can highlight any part of your screen at any time and it’ll create an image of the selected area (png) on your desktop. i use this ALLL the time. best feat evar.

    | Like
  • subcorpus August 7, 2008
    0 likes

    just found out about tweetdeck … downloaded it … and tried it …
    love it … !!!
    ciao twhirl …

    | Like
  • Monocoque August 8, 2008
    0 likes

    I use windows, I found Klok and UV to be great.

    | Like
  • Mackenzie August 9, 2008
    0 likes

    Regarding Webkut, I’d say just holding down Super (Window, Apple, Ubuntu, Diamond…whatever) and selecting what you want to screenshot is the easiest way to take a screenshot of just part of the screen on Linux. It’s a feature of Compiz.

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  • Jack September 23, 2008
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    I think you may have a look at Bookmash (http://www.bookmash.com) AIR desktop application. It’s awesome!

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  • Nilima November 27, 2008
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    Also check out cyn.in blog.cynapse.com/introducing-the-cynin-desktop

    | Like
  • kavoura December 19, 2008
    0 likes

    Getting Adobe air installed on my 64-bit Ubuntu 8.04 OS was difficult, but it works. Unfortunately, most of the apps here will not install. Destroy Flickr is the only one I could to work so far, and it works perfectly.
    One problem I see with some of the sites offering Air apps, is that the installer demands to download and install Adobe Air first before proceeding, even though I have already installed it. If I choose to install, it will download the whole binary and then try to install it, and fail.
    Air is good but the app downloaders mostly suck.

    | Like
    • Damien Oh December 20, 2008
      0 likes

      You will need the latest version of Flash to make use of the app downloader

      | Like
  • Tom February 24, 2009
    0 likes

    klok looks interesting, look forward to trying it out

    | Like
  • Sean March 7, 2009
    0 likes

    You need to checkout http://www.MediaSignage.com
    They offer free digital signage using Adobe AIR and have an amazing product, a must see.

    Dean.

    | Like
  • leisure boats July 2, 2009
    0 likes

    It always takes a Dutchman to show he know best.

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  • Michael September 2, 2009
    0 likes

    And of course loom.tv

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